In this age of information overload, one of the biggest hurdles that Web Page designers face is finding, consolidating, and sharing mission-critical information in a single, easy-to-access Web portal page. Digital dashboards and the applications that host them, such as Microsoft® SharePoint™ Portal Server and Microsoft® Windows™ SharePoint™ Services (WSS) Server, are helping to make these tasks easier.
Digital dashboards are customized portals that consolidate personal and business information into one location and benefit businesses by reducing the time and effort needed to locate and manage information from multiple sources. Information in digital dashboards can come from internal or external sources, and can be accessed online or offline. Best of all, digital dashboards can be highly interactive, allowing for dynamic information management and analysis. Knowledge workers can view and interact with digital dashboards by using applications such as Microsoft® Internet Explorer.
Web Parts are the core building blocks of digital dashboard. Web Parts use technologies such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and scripts on Active Server Pages (ASPs) to render componentized information in digital dashboards. The use of Web Parts has lead to a new title for the knowledge workers who design them: Web Part developers.
When Web Part developers create Web Parts for use with a Web portal, there may be instances in which the Web Part developers may need to manipulate portions of the Web Part User Interface (UI). For example, each time a Web Part developer inserts a new Web Part on the Web page, it may be necessary to customize the menu commands for that particular Web Part. Typically, a standard menu, which contains a standard set of default commands, is displayed for each Web Part on the Web portal page, regardless of the type of Web Part.
For example, a standard set of default commands may include a MINIMIZE/RESTORE command, a CLOSE command, a DELETE command, a MODIFY MY WEB PART command, an EXPORT command, and a HELP command. Thus, the same menu is displayed for a “map” Web Part and for a “search” Web Part and a “table” Web Part. Unfortunately, the standard default commands may not be applicable to every type of Web Part. For example, if a Web Part developer creates a Web Part to display graphical images, he or she may not want the user to be able to export the image to another application program and therefore may want to eliminate or disable the EXPORT command. Similarly, if a Web Part contains a map image, the Web Part developer may want to provide the user with a ZOOM IN command and a ZOOM OUT command. However, because the commands are not included in the default command set for a standard menu, the Web Part developer cannot provide them to the user.
Therefore, there is a need for a method to allow Web Part developers to customize the Extensible Web Part Menu for each Web Part. In particular, there is a need for a method to allow Web Part developers to programmatically add, remove, or alter the functionality of the standard default commands in a Web Part's Extensible Web Part Menu on a portal page and render the customized Extensible Web Part Menu in such a manner as to completely integrate it into the rest of the Web Part.